THE UNSPOKEN WORD, Easter Sunday - Various Scripture Passages

Suppose, God forbid, someone you loved had just died. You attended the funeral Mass, went to the cemetery, left with assurance that “proper care of the grave will be taken after your leave-taking.” It often is one of the hardest things a person ever has to do. But we do it - out of respect for our loved one; in the hope that, for us, it will begin the long process of healing.

Then suppose you went back to the cemetery a few days later, to place fresh flowers on the grave and to allow yourself the release that comes with shedding pent-up tears. You get to the gravesite … and it’s just a hole in the ground!! No casket!! No nothing. Your first reaction would not be, “Oh, how wonderful! (S)he has risen!!” It would be, “Oh, no!! Now what’s happened? Who could have done this!!?”

We are so accustomed to the Easter story that we do not connect with its raw emotions. The women who visit Jesus’ grave on Easter morning did not go with the expectation, not even the vague hope, that He would be risen from the dead. It doesn’t make any difference what He might have said while He was still alive. The idea was a non-starter. For many Jews, there was no such thing. For the more progressive among them, resurrection was real - but it would come at the end of time.

Saint Matthew’s Gospel has this interesting sidelight. The Jewish officials asked Pilate to have Roman troops guard the tomb for fear that Jesus’ followers - trying to fake a resurrection - would come and steal the body. In Saint John’s Gospel, Mary Magdalene, weeping outside the tomb, sees a man in the distance. Assuming him to be the caretaker, she demands to know where he has taken the body of Jesus. The one thing both His friends and His enemies were agreed upon is that the only way the tomb could ever be empty is through the horror of body-snatching.

In all the stories of the empty tomb, a scriptural bearer of God’s message greets the women after their terrible discovery that Jesus’ body is gone. It doesn’t help much. In today’s Gospel, Matthew says that the women were “fearful yet overjoyed,” placing the two emotions in counterpoint. Mark’s Gospel minces no words. He says the women “left the tomb, bewildered and trembling, and because of their great fear, they told nothing to anybody.” In Luke’s Gospel, the women run to tell Peter and the other disciples, “The Lord has been taken from the tomb! We don’t know where they have put Him!” That’s pretty much the same accusation Mary Magdalene hurled at “the gardener” in the Gospel of Saint John.

So, not good news. Bad news. Lots of people have called or written notes to us here at the parish. “Happy Easter,” they say. The wish rings hollow this Easter. Even my chocolate bunny Peeps won’t bridge the gap. I and my loved ones so far have been spared a mysterious and horrific disease that has killed thousands of our fellow citizens and thousands more worldwide. It’s a small consolation but no cause for happiness. We might rather cry out, like Jesus did with His dying breath, “My God, why have You forsaken [us]?!”

Against a backdrop of tragedy much wider than any one person’s loss, is Easter hope realistic or childishly naive? Can we believe in resurrection - both as a religious doctrine and as a human expectation - at the end of this pandemic?

There was a song from the mid-sixties that was a hit twice over, once by Dusty Springfield and once by Dionne Warwick:

“Wishin' and hopin' and thinkin' and prayin’ / Plannin’ and dreamin' each night of his charms // That won't get you into his arms // So if you're lookin' to find love you can share // All you gotta do is hold him and kiss him and love him / And show him that you care // Show him that you care just for him / Do the things he likes to do // You won't get him / Thinkin’ and a-prayin', wishin' and a-hopin’ //”

For a dance tune, its lyrics were surprisingly negative, sarcastic and bitter. They were forward and suggestive; very un-“ladylike,” either for Dusty or, more so, for Dionne. Of course, Mama Cass put it even less delicately explicit: “Longing gazes and worn-out phrases / won’t get you where you want to go! No!” Chalk it up to the spirit of the age - rebellious, sexually permissive, whatever. It’s what a lot of young people, men AND women, were thinking. As Catholics, we could only go so far down that road. But was it wrong - either intellectually dishonest or grossly immoral - to say it out loud?

And is that what we’re doing when we speak with a glimmer of hope about possible medicines, vaccinations to come, jump-starting the economy? Are we just pretending, “whistling past the graveyard?” And, for us who pray, are we expecting an unreasonable miracle?

The Masses of Easter - the Vigil on Saturday night and the morning Masses of Sunday - provide a sumptuous, almost bewildering wealth of perspective from Sacred Scripture. The Vigil, of course, is top-heavy with stories and prophesies from the Old Testament.

They start with the story of Creation from the Book of Genesis. None of us should think that the story is scientific. It is true in an entirely different way. God speaks and the universe comes into being. At the end, God calls it - and us - “very good.” Next comes the story of Isaac and Jacob. Doggedly faithful Isaac! He even makes Jacob carry the wood for the funeral pyre. It is ghastly. Who would kill a child, a son, an heir, for some vague belief in a supreme being? Yet, in the ancient world - European, Asian, American - people sacrificed their children to maleficent idols. God’s messenger stays Isaac’s hand. There will be no more murdering in the name of Yahweh. The obligatory Third Reading is the narrator’s story of the escape across the Red Sea. They say that history is written by the winners; in this case it’s true. God rescues the Israelites by sweeping the waters aside. But the emphasis in the saga is on the destruction of Pharaoh, his chariots and charioteers - to the last man! The writer says they “rode headlong” into the sea; when the tide came in, they were hopelessly mired in the mud and drowned in a few feet of water, toppling over one another in an insane rush for safety. It’s the age-old clash of hubris and hope. And, for once, hope wins.

One of the optional Old Testament readings is from Isaiah 55, verse 1 to 11. It assumes a background of poverty and depression. “Come,” God says, “come to the water. Eat and drink for free!” Then God asks a tantalizing rhetorical question, “Why spend your money for what is not bread, your wages for what does not satisfy?” That question is strikingly modern!! In the midst of our pandemic, many of us are asking the same question. We are watching the deliberate deconstruction of our economy in order to save ourselves. For decades, we have been spending our wages on “what does not satisfy” - junk, trinkets, baubles, pie-in-the sky, and snake oil. “Let the scoundrel forsake his way,” pleads God. There’s no reprisal. “My thoughts are not your thoughts; nor are My ways yours.” The poem ends with the famous image of the snow and rain bringing a fruitful harvest, because My word does not return to Me empty, but accomplishes the end for which I sent It.” Jesus’ last words from the cross in Saint John’s Gospel are, “I have accomplished it!” He is the Word God has spoken to the world. He can make it possible for us to invest in what truly satisfies. He can help the scoundrel forsake his ways.

The Epistle Reading for Easter Day has Saint Paul end his note to the Church at Colossae by saying, “Your life is hidden with Christ in God. When Christ your Life appears, you shall appear with Him in glory.” Our lives right now are literally hidden; we are keeping apart from one another, staying behind closed doors. Hidden. “Christ our Life” will appear once again on our altars, from our Baptismal fonts, in the oil of Confirmation and Ordination, in the passionate kiss of Marriage Vows. And we will appear with Him.

The Mass prayers also speak some remarkable truths, some stirring pleas:

“O God, Who WONDERFULLY created human nature and still more wonderfully restored it ...!” “We pray that all nations ... may be reborn ...!” These function for us as a naked plea for rescue, and a joyful recognition of the goodness of the world God made and remakes each day.

Finally, there is the “Sequence” sung or recited before the Easter Gospel. When recited, it reads as clumsy poetry. When sung, it usually becomes the choir’s chore. It goes back to the eleventh century - a time when art and music were starting to be harnessed for the service of liturgy. The song is a pastiche of references to the Resurrection stories in the Gospels. “Death and life have contended in that combat stupendous!” Really!! Isn’t that what happened to “Pharaoh, his chariots and charioteers? Isn’t that what has just happened to our world?

At one point, the poet addresses Mary Magdalene: “Speak, Mary! What did you see wayfaring?” But Mary was not “wayfaring.” She only ran from the tomb to the Upper Room and back. So, who’s wayfaring? It’s we, listening to, or singing along with, the Sequence. What a dark detour our life’s journeys have recently taken. Listen to Magdalene’s answer: “Christ, our hope has arisen! To Galilee He goes before you!”

So, there is more to the journey. Jesus is “not here;” He is waiting up ahead. We have a ways to go. Dusty and Dionne were right. “Wishing and hoping and thinking” do not get the job done. Easter is not about receiving. It’s about doing. “Come!” said God in Isaiah. His Word did not return to Him empty-handed, it accomplished something. To “come,” we have to travel; we have to do. Isaac and Jacob had to make that fearful journey to the edge of tragedy and the brink of unspeakable horror. Only then could they take a life-saving step backward from obscene destruction. We have to conserve our energies and our resources for the journey. Victory comes at a terrible price ... but will still be a victory. It will be “very good.”